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From: urban@spp2.UUCP (Mike Urban)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Learn Esperanto or bust
Message-ID: <835@spp2.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Dec-85 12:19:48 EST
Article-I.D.: spp2.835
Posted: Mon Dec 23 12:19:48 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 01:41:57 EST
References: <297@jenny.UUCP>
Reply-To: urban@spp2.UUCP (Mike Urban)
Organization: TRW, Redondo Beach  CA
Lines: 32

In article <297@jenny.UUCP> jbdp@jenny.UUCP (Julian Pardoe) writes:
>
>Ah,   but   if  you  were  to  learn  Esperanto  you  should  be  pretty
>disappointed  if after  2 1/2  years  of  *very  casual*  study  of  you
>couldn't  speak  with  a  fair  degree  of fluency,  write with ease and
>understand the spoken and the written language with no trouble  at  all.
>In  fact,  you  should  be able to get by after a couple of months study
>(if not less).

In a Los Angeles Times article some time back, it was mentioned
that one reason that Esperanto is spreading fairly rapidly
in mainland China is because, while learning English is far more
PRACTICALLY useful than learning Esperanto, Esperanto gives MUCH more
language-learning "bang for the buck".  It seems to be especially
useful in China as sort of an "introduction to European syntax and
roots" and makes it easier to learn another language like English
later on.

This, of course, does not address reasons why an American (or Brit--
sorry Julian) might want to learn Esperanto, but you can be
certain that if you do decide to study the language you'll
be genuinely astonished at how easy it is to acquire reasonable
fluency.  This "feeling of power" is unique to Esperanto,
and thus you might find it useful as a cure for language-phobia
in general.

-- 

   Mike Urban
	{ucbvax|decvax}!trwrb!trwspp!spp2!urban 

"You're in a maze of twisty UUCP connections, all alike"